The history of modern settlement of Campbell dates back to 1805 when a group of
Griqua, including Captain
Andries Waterboer, travelled with missionary
Jan Matthys Kok from Klaarwater (now
Griquatown) to the territory of the
Tswana near the modern town of
Kuruman. Encountering strong springs in a valley at the edge of the
Ghaap Plateau, they gave the place the name of
Knovel Valley, noting its potential for future crop cultivation. It was only in 1811 that the Reverend
Lambert Jansz, accompanying the traveller
William Burchell, revisited the place, taking possession of the springs, by now known as
Groote Fontein (Great Fountain), in the name of the
London Missionary Society. Before long the name of the place would be changed again: when the Reverend
John Campbell, on a tour of inspection in 1813, reached the nascent village and asked its name, he was told it was Campbell. In 1816
Cornelis Kok II (1778-1858) was declared Griqua
Kaptyn (Captain) of Campbell. Other members of the Kok family had resided there from the beginning of the settlement. The Reverend
John Bartlett was stationed as a missionary at Campbell from 1825 and supervised the construction of a mission church there between 1827 and 1831. Many missionaries and travellers of the nineteenth century passed through the valley and the settlement – including
William Burchell,
George Thompson,
Andrew Smith,
Robert Moffat,
David Livingstone and
G.A. Farini. ==Cornelis Kok II and 34 others re-interred==